twelve21gallery

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Damien Hirst is taking over the art world…

And it seems to be pissing off a lot of people.

Why is Damien Hirst so rich? Why do collectors buy up all his stuff? It’s a mystery…or it’s just about money and a name.  He’s put dead animals in tanks of formaldehyde, covered a skull in a bunch of diamonds, put some stuff in some medicine cabinets, and made spin art paintings (don’t elementary school kids do that?). All of this and he has somehow become a millionaire. What’s really annoying is that he rarely makes the art, he has an army of people mass producing it for him. The idea is his so he’s the artist, but are the ideas behind his art even that great? Many have speculated this, alluding to the fact that it’s possible that now Hirst  is just a famous name associated with a large dollar amount.

So how did one artist get so rich and famous? Apparently through Charles Saatchi who relentlessly promoted Hirst back in the early 90’s, when he was new and actually making interesting art. Saatchi is known for giving young talented British artists their gateway into fame.  Recently (kind of) in 2009 in an article for the Telegraph, Saatchi said Hirst’s work has been off-form for a while. Although Saatchi and other critics seem to be “over” Hirst, he is still wildly popular among collectors.

Hirst’s latest shenanigan is a planned retrospective that’s taking over all of the Gagosian galleries across the world. Hirst has convinced gallery owner Larry Gagosian to let him have a retrospective of all of his “spot” paintings that he started back in the 80’s and is now continuing (UH weird?). There are Gagosian galleries in London, New York, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Athens, Geneva and Beverly Hills…and his spot paintings are going to fill all of them. That is serious. Richard Dorment, art critic for Telegraph in London, said the paintings were “fantastically boring”, and it seems that many agree.

The retrospective is launching January 12th, can’t wait to see what the reaction is.